Ghostwriting policies in high-impact biomedical journals: a cross-sectional study.

A lthough sound authorship of biomedical journal articles relies on personal and professional integrity and accountability, recent controversies concerning ghostwriting and guest authorship have shown that this approach has limitations. Ghostwriting and guest authorship are often linked to academic-industry collaborations. Typically, industrysponsored professional writers prepare complete articles, which are then presented to senior, often expert, academics who submit the article in their own name (perhaps after some editing) and are often reimbursed. Although biomedical journals have led the way in drawing up editorial policies, ghostwriting policies have not been analyzed. We aimed to assess the prevalence and content of ghostwriting policies in the most influential biomedical journals.